DHAKA: The Indian Primer League (IPL) 2014 will either be jointly hosted by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bangladesh and India or will be shifted entirely to South Africa.

The IPL franchise owners and related officials got into an emergency meeting on Tuesday evening in Bangalore to discuss the player auctions coming up on Wednesday and Thursday and it wasn`t Gurunath Meiyappan or Raj Kundra that ended up as the topic most discussed, reports TOI.

Instead, the meeting was about the venues that will have to be finalised if the IPL ends up clashing with the country`s general elections like it happened in 2009. Another meeting of the team owners is scheduled on Thursday to discuss the issue once again.

IPL 7 tentatively begins on April 9 and all franchise owners have been told by the governing council that if the general elections - to be held in phases across the country between April and May - clash with the IPL, the first three phases of the league will be held in UAE and Bangladesh and the last leg will be brought back to India.

However, if that is not a possibility - given that IPL 2014 will end up being a 35-odd day tournament with eight teams in fray and 59 matches scheduled - the tournament will be entirely shifted to South Africa, a venue that turned out to be a tremendous success four years ago.

"The idea is to ensure that India hosts as many matches as possible, preferably the knockouts. That is why, if the first few legs clash with the elections, venues in Bangladesh like Dhaka and Chittagong and the ones in UAE like Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah can be considered.

"However, if the last leg cannot be hosted in India then there`s no point hosting it in UAE and Bangladesh. It can be hosted by Cricket South Africa. They`ve shown a lot of interest already," a highly-placed source told TOI.

Sources say Cricket South Africa ( CSA) agreed to the recent ICC revamp only after the IPL carrot was dangled.

BDST:1028 HRS, FEB 12, 2014